Lebanese-Dominican Syriac Luis Abinader wins Dominican Republic presidential election

SANTO DOMINGO – Lebanese-Dominican Syriac of the Maronite Church, Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona, candidate of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) of the Dominican Republic, announced his victory in the country’s presidential election last Sunday.

President-elect Abinader was born in the Dominican capital Santo Domingo in 1967 to parents Rosa Sula Corona Caba, a white Dominican of Canarian colonial lineage, and the late José Rafael Abinader, Senator for Santiago Province and founder of the PRM.

Abinader’s great-grandfather immigrated to the Dominican Republic from Baskinta, Mount Lebanon in 1898 and married the daughter of immigrants also from Baskinta.

Abinader ran for election in 2012 and 2016 but was defeated both times.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri tweeted, “The winning of Luis Abinader, who boasts of his origin from Biskanta, is a source of pride for all Lebanese and for the town that gave birth to such people as Mikhail Naima. Hope is always with the Lebanese and their energies and successes at home and in the world.”

Abinader is the third person of Syriac origin to become president of a state in the Americas after former Argentine President Carlos Menem and Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia, the 37th President of Brazil and the son of Lebanese Syriac Maronite immigrants.